Hurricanes usually bring to mind devastation and destruction, but to mark the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Ivan, the Cayman Islands Red Cross is focusing on the positives.
Over the past five months, the organization has been filming a three-minute video to highlight how Hurricane Ivan strengthened the Cayman community.
“Whilst hurricanes aren’t something that we celebrate, the most important thing for the Red Cross is to demonstrate how far we’ve come,” said Danielle Coleman, Cayman Islands Red Cross disaster manager.
The theme of the video is “10 years later, 10 years stronger,” which features the song “Happy” by pop icon Pharrell Williams, and displays footage of the disaster recovery work that ensued after the category five storm hit.
“The video is to Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ song, and you can see Hurricane Ivan then, and how far we’ve come now. In the video, we demonstrate the work we do at the Red Cross, and we have our stakeholders in the video to celebrate how far we’ve come in 10 years,” said Ms. Coleman.
She said Hurricane Ivan brought a heightened sense of awareness to Cayman in terms of seeing the need for disaster preparation. Following the storm, 38 volunteers completed disaster management training with the Red Cross, and various people forged community response teams. One of these teams included 17 North Sound Garden residents who each completed a 10-week disaster response module with the Red Cross in 2012.
“We’ve developed community emergency response teams in North Side, North Sound Gardens, West Bay, and Cayman Brac,” said Ms. Coleman.
To help the community prepare for a hurricane, the Red Cross has also carried out “vulnerability and capacity assessments” in different locations.
“Windsor Park is a place that often floods, that’s why we’ve been working with Windsor Park, as well as other places on vulnerability and capacity assessments,” said Ms. Coleman.
Although Windsor Park is prone to flooding, which is one of the vulnerabilities of the area, she said, “They have a great park” and “they are close to the hospital, which is a great capacity.”
For people living in areas prone to flooding, Ms. Coleman said there are various options to prepare. “You can think about getting sandbags ready, or building ditches.”
The Red Cross has deployed 10 CCTV cameras throughout the island to assist in determining disaster response methods – for example, which areas are prone to flooding, or to locate where a disaster is occurring.
The organization has also stockpiled nine containers of disaster supplies, such as cleaning kits, tarpaulins, and ponchos, with a goal to provide all districts with emergency relief supplies in the event of personal, local or national disasters.
“What we want to celebrate is being 10 years stronger than we were 10 years ago,” said Ms. Coleman.
The video is due to launch on the Cayman Islands Red Cross Facebook page on Thursday.
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